Andrew ‘Boz’ Bosworth, Meta CTO and Reality Labs chief, has publicly apologized to Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus who was ousted from the company in 2017 for political reasons.

To this day, Meta (ex-Facebook) never publicly confirmed why Luckey was fired, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg even going on record in a U.S. congressional hearing in 2018, saying Luckey’s ousting “was not because of a political view.”

It was however a political action that ostensibly gained Luckey notoriety among company leadership that led to his ousting in March 2017, only three years after Meta acquired Oculus for $2 billion.

Oculus […]

Meta has aggressively expanded its VR game portfolio with the acquisition of nine VR studios since 2019. We take a look what’s come of these deals over the last five years.

Acquisition by Meta usually means a few things. Sometimes it means studios get a ton of new resources and the sort of stability that comes with being beamed up into the mothership of any platform holder. It can also mean less flexibility in what developers can do, as they’re beholden to maintaining hit game properties that got them the attention of Meta in the first place, or forced […]

Microsoft revealed last year it had plans to pull the plug on support for its entire WMR platform on Windows. Now, with the launch of Windows 11 2024 Update yesterday, those VR headsets have essentially been bricked.

Initially kicked off in 2017, Microsoft was well positioned to make Windows a home to a fleet of PC VR headsets, which were notably some of the first headsets with inside-out tracking, including entrants from Acer, Asus, Dell, Lenovo, HP, and Samsung.

Served by its ‘Windows Mixed Reality’ software platform, which included baked-in support for the Windows operating system, WMR headset users also […]

XR Games, the Leeds, UK-based studio known for Hitman 3 VR: Reloaded (2024) and Zombieland VR: Headshot Fever (2021), have laid off a reported 86 percent of its staff.

The information was shared by María Fernanda Díez Huerta via LinkedIn, who was Head of Production at XR Games from 2021 – 2023. Huerta reported on Tuesday the studio has now laid off 72 employees, retaining only 12 out of around 84, something she notes “goes beyond restructuring.”

This includes a number of positions in art, programming, QA, production, game design and IT.

Neither XR Games nor its CEO Bobby Thandi […]

In an effort to reposition the price ladder for its flagship headset, Meta is aiming to get the 128GB model of Quest 3 out the door for good. A new refurbished Quest 3 deal on Amazon is the best we’ve seen yet.

Amazon US is currently selling a refurbished Quest 3 (128GB) for $380 and the refurbished Quest 3 (512GB) for $450 through its ‘Renewed Premium’ program.

While you can buy refurbished Quest 3 units for the same price directly from Meta, Amazon’s deal has a considerable extra perk: instead of the 30-day return policy you get with […]

Microsoft announced to enterprise partners last week that it’s discontinuing its latest AR headset, HoloLens 2, and pulling the plug on support updates at the end of 2027, leaving many to question whether the Redmond tech giant is shelving the platform altogether.

One such enterprise partner was Jens Lauritsen, Chief Product Officer of the Copenhagen-based XR startup Virsabi, who published the email from Microsoft detailing their plans.

In it (seen below), Microsoft announced the “Last Time Buy” for HoloLens 2, noting that remaining stock is on a first come, first served basis.

Additionally, Microsoft says HoloLens 2 will continue […]

Announced at Connect last week, Meta is launching its next-generation avatars in Horizon Worlds today, giving users a lot more customization options to choose from before jumping into the company’s social VR platform.

Starting today, users can dig even deeper into adjusting their avatars’ appearance, including features like customizable body proportions, nose shape, eye size, and lip size. Like its previous avatars system, these also work across Meta’s other platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger.

The sort of flash marketing images you’ll see with smiling and laughing avatars only really paints a part of the picture though, since the sort of […]

HTC announced that its Vive Ultimate Tracker is now compatible with third-party PC VR headsets that support SteamVR.

Originally developed for the Vive Focus 3 and Vive XR Elite, Vive Ultimate Tracker is a puck-like device that comes equipped with two cameras, allowing it to track its position without external devices or base stations, supporting both object and full-body tracking.

Released last November for $200, Vive Ultimate Tracker is now compatible with SteamVR headsets, which includes tethered PC VR headsets such as Valve Index, but also standalone devices capable of connecting to PCs, such as Quest 3 or Pico Pico […]

Our series Inside XR Design highlights examples of great XR design. Today we’re looking at shotguns in several different VR games to learn what makes them feel great in the player’s hand. In doing so, we’ll uncover the secret to making anything feel great in VR.

You can find the complete video below, or continue reading for an adapted text version.

Ok, we’re jumping right into this… if I asked you ‘what’s your favorite shotgun in VR?’ you can probably picture it in your head pretty quickly. But could you tell me exactly what makes that shotgun feel so great?

Well, […]

Sony Pictures Virtual Reality and XR Games, the studio behind Hitman 3 VR: Reloaded (2024) and upcoming shooter Zombie Army VR, today announced Starship Troopers: Continuum, an online multiplayer shooter that brings you back to the Arachnid infested wasteland.

Teased last week by the ’90s film actor Casper Van Dien, today we learned just what VR plans Sony has for its Starship Trooper franchise.

The studios today announced Starship Troopers: Continuum, which is slated to arrive on Quest 2 and 3 on October 17th, and PSVR 2 on October 31st.

Despite Vision Pro’s $3,500 price tag, which is nearly 12 times more expensive than the $300 Quest 3S, Apple and Meta are destined to be direct competitors in the XR space at some point in the near future. According to a report by Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman, Apple may be rethinking its XR strategy moving forward though following Meta’s unveiling of its impressively slim AR glasses prototype, Orion.

Citing Apple insiders, Gurman reports that Apple “seems aware that it needs to rethink its approach to headsets, but there isn’t consensus on how to […]

MoonHood, a studio founded by developers behind Lost in Random (2021) and Ghost Giant (2019), finally unveiled their long-teased VR project, The Midnight Walk.

MoonHood first announced last year it was collaborating with VR veteran Fast Travel Games as a publisher on a mysterious new title, showing off a number of dark and twisted clay objects that, through 3D scanning, would act as the basis for game assets.

Coming to PlayStation 5, PSVR 2, Steam and PC VR headsets, MoonHood describes The Midnight Walk as a “reverent dark fantasy first-person adventure game built entirely in clay.”

Image courtesy MoonHood

In the game, […]

Quest users can cast their in-game view to a TV, a mobile phone, and even to their friends and family on Facebook Messenger now. According to a recent marketing image uncovered by serial leaker and data miner Luna, it may soon also include support for WhatsApp too.

An update earlier this month allowed Quest users to screen share over Facebook Messenger, letting you cast your in-game exploits on video calls.

Now, it appears support is headed for Meta’s other big mobile messaging app, WhatsApp, in addition to Meta’s own Horizon Chat for Quest.

Apparently this functionality is getting […]